Facebook suspends 200 apps over data misuse

17 Mai 2018

Mark Zuckerberg himself said that the company would be investigating and assessing all apps that had been given access to large amounts of user data before Facebook controlled data access from 2014 onwards.

In the European Union expect disclosure of how a third party used Facebook user data that were obtained through unauthorized access.

On Monday, Zuckerberg will also attend a meeting organized by French President Emmanuel Macron aimed at pressuring tech giants to use their global influence for public good.

Macron and the European officials are sure to quiz the 33-year-old along familiar lines: Facebook's record on keeping private data secure and the firm's role in election campaigns in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, with a few questions about digital taxation thrown in.

The FBI and the Justice Department are investigating the data breach.

Facebook said that it recognised "the seriousness of these issues" and provided written answers to 39 questions posed by the MPs.

Following a rigorous session of tough questioning from United Kingdom legislators, Schroepfer was sent home with the message that he had failed to address 39 questions that the Committee wanted answers to.

Mr Zuckerberg's appearance before European Union politicians comes just ahead of the bloc's new data protection laws, which Facebook has said it will only implement within its jurisdiction - standing in contrast to Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL - news), which has said it will apply the same privacy standards worldwide.

Zuckerberg had previously shunned the request to appear in front of a parliamentary select committee and instead opted to send chief technology officer Mark Schroepfer instead.

In March, the Guardian reported that Cambridge Analytica - through a contractor - gathered personal information from an estimated 87 million Facebook users without obtaining the consent of many of those users.

I'm pleased that Facebook is now trying to mop up these third-party apps which have broken users' trust in the past, but to my mind it's too late.

'There is a lot more work to be done to find all the apps that may have misused people's Facebook data - and it will take time, ' Mr Archibong said. Zuckerberg testified before the House of Representatives and the Senate in April.